In this house of ours
by moonstruck2133
Summary: Living life, and all that comes with it.


Title: in this house of ours Rating: PG Pairing: Dramione Summary: Living life, and all that comes with it.

Help me to go home, carry me like an aged child in your arms. Undress me and wash me. Strip me of all of these garments, strip me as a man strips off dreams when the dawn comes. . . . -Aime Cesaire

Draco wakes suddenly, no transition from slumber to awareness, pulled from gray unconsciousness in the snap of two fingers. Sunlight slants across the sheets, blinding him momentarily as he opens his eyes. Like gold-and-white candy canes, Hermione said once, the way the light fractures through the blinds. Not really, Draco thought then, but mornings are horrible times to argue with Hermione, when she is disgustingly chipper and Draco's half-asleep.

He turns on his side, reaching out for that familiar warmth, but his fingers touch nothing but emptiness. He smiles to himself. Hermione probably went to buy fresh bread from the corner bakery, as she feels the sudden urge to do every once in awhile. Draco's too old to go looking for her. He'll tease her about arthritis and walking slowly when she comes back.

"What's this?"

"A house." Draco can't look at Hermione, scared to death of what he'll see spelled out on her face. He concentrates instead on the rust-colored stones lining the walkway, leading up to the biggest commitment of his life.

A touch on his face startles him. He lets out a breath he doesn't know he's holding. An unspoken question lies in Hermione's fingers as they cup his face, tilt his head up. Like jumping off a cliff, Draco thinks, covering Hermione's hands with his own. He steps off the edge.

"A house," he repeats, voice low with nervousness. "Our house."

A slight tightening of Hermione's fingers in his own is all the warning he gets before Hermione crushes him in an embrace, kissing him long and deep and Draco doesn't know if he's still holding his breath or if it's the happiness that's suffocating him right now, but he doesn't care.

When they break apart, Hermione's eyes are bright, and her smile outshines the morning sunlight she loves so much. Something constricts in Draco's chest as he touches the wetness on Hermione's cheeks.

"Hey," he says, wrapping his arms around him. "You should always be smiling, right?"

Hermione hiccup-giggles into his shoulder, then punches him weakly in the stomach.

"What's this?" Draco pulls away in mock anger. "Is this how you treat your boyfriend? Who just bought you a house? I changed my mind, I'm returning it --"

Hermione kisses him again, intense and golden and stealing away his soul as only Hermione can.

"I love you," Hermione whispers in his ear, like he's telling a secret. And then he's running up the path, half-shouting, half-laughing his excitement.

"Come on," he says from the white-painted doorway, impatient. "We have to see it together!"

A light breeze floats by, carrying the scent of autumn and hope and future, and Draco thinks as he walks towards the rest of his life, I'm home.

Draco lazily drifts back into consciousness, blinking slowly. He must have fallen asleep again. He stretches, then winces as he feels his bones crack. He can hear Hermione now--

"Get up, you lazy old man! How did I end up with the slowest person in the world? Out of all the people in the universe, you, Draco Malfoy! I'm going crazy! I'm not leaving any chocolate croissants for you!"

--and laughs. How many years has it been now? They hardly get recognized anymore, the war gradually fading over the years like worn parchment. He knows that he's old, can see it in the mirror each morning, but Hermione has never been anything but young and vibrant in his eyes. Her brilliance keeps them eternally twenty.

Draco yawns, not wanting to leave the warm nest of their bed. Must be a long line at the baker's today, he thinks, nodding off.

He'll get up and fight Hermione for the chocolate croissant like he always does when Hermione returns.

"We're baaaack!" Hermione shouts, dropping her bags in the hallway.

"Hermione, you're so weird. The house is not a person, why do you talk to it like it is?" Draco smirks when Hermione glares at him. "What?"

"I always knew your fans were misled. Sensitive, ha!" Giving him one last look of disapproval, Hermione slips off her shoes and runs off. Draco knows without looking that Hermione's headed towards their bedroom. The first thing she does when they return home is collapse on the bed; depending on her energy level, jumping like a little girl is sometimes involved. Draco doesn't even try to hide his smile as he follows Hermione's path, shaking off London's bustle and dust and din and feeling whole again.

Draco finds Hermione sprawled on the bed, arms open in an empty embrace. He crawls on top of her and fills the space.

"Tired?" he says gently, fluffing Hermione's hair up with his fingers.

Hermione closes her eyes for a moment, lulled by the touch. "A little." She opens them again, though, and oh -- Draco knows that look.

Hermione flips them over neatly, straddling Draco with her slight weight.

"I think the bed missed us, don't you?" she says, pulling off his sweater in one smooth move.

Draco traces the arch of Hermione's back with his eyes and shivers in anticipation.

"Very much."

Draco shifts, caught in that space between deep sleep and light consciousness. His arms reach out, but not finding what they seek, curl around a pillow. "Hermione …" he mumbles, a small frown etched on his worn face.

"Hermione…"

Hermione is silent as she unlocks the door and pushes it open. Dropping the keys on the floor, Draco bends to pick them up, gives it back to Hermione then leaves her for the kitchen.

Hermione was left in the hall. Her eyes land on a framed picture on the counter. For a second she is immobile, transfixed by the sight: the five of them, Harry, Ginny, Ron, Hermione and Draco, arms around each other with white sand beneath them and the bright blue sky stretched towards the horizon, smiling so wide that it hurts to look at it. She cannot stop herself from focusing on Ron's face.

Grief punches her in the stomach. She had thought that she had no more tears left, but she's wrong. They spill hotly down her cheeks, and all she can think of as Ron's image blurs before him is that they never got to go back, just the five of them. Just them. Cold metal bites her palm. She looks down blindly at her white-knuckled grip and hurls the keys at the picture, turning away before she can hear it shatter.

He finds Hermione curled on her side on the bed, motionless. Her eyes are open. Blank. Fear grips Draco at the morbid picture Hermione paints, black clothes like a stark blot of ink on their white comforter, figure unnaturally still.

Time is broken, halting and moving again with moments lost in between. Draco doesn't remember moving but he is suddenly gripping Hermione, shaking her, screaming at her to move.

Hermione touches his face, pulls him down next to her, and the tenderness in her touch undoes him.

"Don't leave me, don't leave me, don't leave me," Draco whispers, again and again and Hermione's holding him tightly as if she might break if he lets go. "Don't leave me."

"I won't leave you," Hermione says, voice gravelly with disuse. She hasn't spoken since the funeral at the burrow.

"I'm so selfish."

A sob chokes her. She feels like she will never stop crying, as if she's drowning in an ocean of her tears.

"You're not, what are you talking abo--"

Draco cries harder. "I am, I am, and I hate myself for it. I want to die first, I don't want to be alone, because I--I don't know--what I would do without you." The words spill from his mouth and he can't stop talking, can't even think about stopping. "Even though you would be the one alone, I still want to do it, I still want to die first. I'm such a fucking coward and I'm so scared, Hermione, I've never been so scared in my life."

A hysterical laugh bubbles out of Hermione and she holds Draco tighter. When Draco looks up, finally, Hermione's smile is edged with tears.

"I promise I'll let you die first," Hermione says, stroking his hair. "And then I'll come find you in Heaven."

"Don't wait too long," Draco whispers. "I'll miss you until you do."

"I promise."

The grief is still there, hovering above them, but for now, everything is okay.

When Draco wakes up again, it is midday. Sunlight shines across the foot of the bed, heavy and bright with dust motes dancing on its stage.

He remembers it all at once.

"You promised," he whispers. His hands, lined with age, tremble against the covers. "You promised."

Draco closes his eyes and sighs out his last breath.

"Draco, did you miss me?"

"Not one bit. I found myself three girlfriends while you were gone."

"…"

"Ow!"

"I'm only forgiving you because I know you're lying."

"Yeah, well, I'm only forgiving you because I found you again."

"…I'm sorry. For breaking my promise."

"It's okay. I kept your other one."

"I love you."

"I know."

"OW! What was that for?"

"Say it back!"

"…I love you too."

"That's better."

"I really do. Um, love you, I mean."

"I know."

end. 


End file.
